Day 5 & 6: Traveling West to Saskatoon

Originally scheduled to travel a long 8 hours up to Whitehorse, Yukon, CA, 3 of us instead arrived to Saskatoon with 10 other teachers. Saskatoon is the largest city in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The view on the flight was gorgeous. Someone said that this area is like Canada's mid-west. Lots of flat, open land. About 250,000 people. It's one of the fanciest small airports I've ever seen.

Yesterday we spent the day visiting the Wanuskewin Heritage Park with Candace Wasacase-Lafferty. Wanuskewin means "Peaceful Gathering Place".What a powerful experience! Not only was Candace's passion for sharing about what it means to be indigenous and the beauties and struggles that go with that identity a trans-formative moment, but we also walked were people lived over 6,000 years ago. Older than the pyramids.

Candace's father was a survivor of the residential schools and she shared that growing up she was not able to openly talk about being indigenous. They had to speak only English in order to survive. She lives her life willing to be a bridge to bring about reconciliation. However, she clarified that,

"Reconciliation is for Canada. RECLAMATION is for indigenous people.”

Bringing back bison to the land was a project taken on by the Wanuskewin Heritage Park. Settlers slaughtered bison as a way to try to destroy indigenous people. The bison population went from 30 million to less than 1,000 by the 1880s. The Elders in the indigenous community said they need to bring back the bison and the dream was born. The goal was to bring back the most genetically pure plains bison (many are bred with cattle over the years).

Canadace shared from her perspective that it was a really cold morning as she stood with 3 women who are residency school survivors. The 4 women watched as a truck pulled up with a large trailor and they were present as 4 female bison ran out of the trailer onto the hand for the first time. They felt healed from all that they had suffered in their lives as the 4 women watched the 4 female bison run free on the land.